


The Hunter's Choice: Love or Pride

by Breath4Soul



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (ಠ‿↼), (ಥ﹏ಥ), (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ:･ﾟ✧, Agressive Sherlock, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Memories, Desperate Sherlock, Dom/sub Undertones, Dominant Sherlock, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, First Time, Flirting, Fluff and Smut, Goodbye Sex, Hot Sex, Hotel Sex, I Need You Now, If you like it aggressive and desperate, In more ways than one, Johnlock - Freeform, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Might Just Kill You Sex, Mildly Dubious Consent, NSFW, Pining Sherlock, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post Mary, Secretly pinning John, Sherlock breaking John, Slow Burn, Some feels too, Sweet/Hot, that escalated quickly, this just sort of happened, ♥‿♥
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-06-06 16:18:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6761206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breath4Soul/pseuds/Breath4Soul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>A typical case out of town (post-Mary) leads to reflection, secrets shared and misunderstandings. Thinking he is going to lose John for good, Sherlock decides to try to take as much as he can before his companion is gone forever... But he always misses<i> something </i>and John never fails to surprise him. </b><br/> <br/><b>Lots of feels, some smut and a happy ending - in more ways than one (ಠ‿↼) </b><br/>___________</p><blockquote>
  <p>Sherlock leans forward and breathes John in a moment. He wants to push away, before he is pushed. He wants to be the type of man that was deserving of John’s companionship. </p>
  <p>“Please, John,” he hears spilling from his treacherous lips. They find that strong neck, pressing and licking and sucking, trying desperately to memorize taste, scent, texture, the heat, the flex and slide of muscle, the thump of pulse beneath flesh, how it yields and how it resists. A million points of data and properties unexplored that he desperately needs to catalog now before he's gone forever.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. Constellations

“Can't sleep?” John asks as he slips out onto the cramped balcony. He pulls the glass door adjoining the hotel room closed behind him and looks down at his bare feet; rocking back on his heels to curl and uncurl his toes against the cold concrete. He folds his arms around his compact body to retain some heat against the night's chill.

Sherlock hums in agreement, leaning back against the balcony rail and tipping his head to let the billows of gray smoke curl languid trails past his lips into the night sky. He levels his gaze at John and, seeing the disapproval on his face, stretches towards the nearby table and grinds the cigarette out in its ashtray. 

“Thought we were done with all that,” John remarks flatly, nodding towards the discarded cigarette.

Sherlock’s silver eyes glint in the cool light of the moon as he drags his gaze over John. “The flesh is weak, even when the mind is willing,” He replies somewhat cryptically. His eyes sweep away to rest on the woods the balcony overlooks, seeming to search for something in the tenebrous shadows. 

John mentally blames his shudder on the cool night air and wraps his arms tighter around himself, wishing he had at least donned his housecoat instead of joining Sherlock in just his pajama bottoms and the old cotton t-shirt he uses for sleeping.

“Thought you'd be down for some time, what with the case solved,” John says in that forced casualness that his companion knows means he is worried. 

It was a long and exhausting case during which the detective had barely slept for three days. By all rights he should be in _post-case recovery mode_ where he satiates all the basic requirements he had denied his body during the case; eating a good solid meal and sleeping soundly for at least 10 hours. Yet, tonight he is unable to quiet his mind. It continues churning and his senses keep pulling in every bit of information from the world around him with merciless intensity. 

The hotel is torture in his heightened state. Not only can he deduce several of the more unsavory exploits of their rooms’ previous residents, he can hear everything through the thin walls and floors. 

He heard the beleaguered parents reprimanding their wild twin toddlers two doors down; their tones turning softer and loving as the hour waned. The prattling, falsely enthusiastic tone of a bedtime story that was being read for the millionth time giving way to the somewhat sad lilting tones of a lullaby before falling silent. 

He could hear the older couple watching telly across the hall; the man having a rather vehement argument with the evening news. The gibbering and pacifying tones of the old woman as she tried to quell his temper with reminders about the futility of his actions and the dangers of elevating his blood pressure. 

When the placid, muffled breaths of John sleeping in the bed parallel his own mingled with the rather enthusiastic sounds of the couple shaking their bed frame drifting up through the floor from the room below, it all became a little too much for the detective. 

Sherlock shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, dismissing the thought of sharing insight into this particular struggle with John. He angles his body to face his friend, leaning one hip against the banister of the balcony. Shoving his hands in the pockets of his long coat he wraps it around him a little tighter. The collar frames his prominent cheekbones. If one ignores the pajama bottoms barely visible on the length of his calf and the long bare feet, his whole demeanor emanates an enviable nonchalance better suited for the spread of a magazine than this little hotel nestled in the countryside. 

Aware he is still a bit fuzzy from lack of sleep, John allows himself to smile at the contrast. Something about seeing Sherlock out of his element, away from the harsh urban landscape of London that is so a part of him, always brings the unique allure of his longtime companion sharply into focus. 

The moon is too bright here,” Sherlock offers in response to John’s earlier statement. He jerks his head towards the enormous round disk filling the sky with its brilliant glow. It appears to be full, casting the world in an eerie cold light and filling the sky with a brightness that drowns out some of the stars closer to the orb.

John tilts his head back and his eyes roam over the night sky. Here, away from the lights of the city, the sky stretches out around them as an adumbral, velvety blackness with pinpricks of light in crisp contrast. 

John’s face softens, the creases of concern and hardship dissolve and his jaws goes a little slack. He takes a deep, contented breath. 

Sherlock watches this transformation with interest. He tries to classify this new expression of John’s. It holds the subtle mixture of emotions that one would expect to see grace the features of one reunited with a long-lost friend. This deduction catches Sherlock off guard and it is his turn to shudder and blame the night chill.

“You like the night.” Sherlock observes quietly, his eyes drinking in the rapt expression on John's face. The doctor hums his agreement, his jaw hardly bothering to form around the sound; not caring to be distributed from its position hanging slightly ajar with lips parted.

“Why?” Sherlock inquires. John's eyes flick to Sherlock momentarily with a subtle tensing of his jaw and then they slide back up to the sky. 

“Spent a lot of time alone outside at night when I was coming up,” John offers a bit stiffly. Sherlock understands the meaning behind the words. He never talks about his childhood but Sherlock has long suspected that his sister, Harriet, inherited her excessive drinking habits from an alcoholic father. He also concluded that their father was a mean drunk; with John suffering the brunt of his ill moods. This deduction would seem to align with the new data that John spent many nights outside in the dark, staring up at the sky, no doubt waiting for it to be safe to sneak back into his own bed. 

He feels an unfamiliar ache in his chest at thinking of all John's lonely nights and, however illogical, he has the sudden longing to reach back across the years and close his arms around a young, scared John Watson sitting alone in the dark.

John takes a deep breath. “They're like old friends... I always felt more at home beneath a clear night sky. More _myself_... I used to think…” 

John's eyes dart back to Sherlock now and he swallows, looking slightly embarrassed. Neither of them are prone to spending a lot of time or breath on nostalgic or wistful thoughts, but he considers Sherlock especially averse to sentimentality or flights of fancy. 

Sherlock gives him a small and genuine smile and a shrug of encouragement. John clears his throat and returns his gaze to the sky. “I used to feel like we were all just bugs in a jar, and during the day time all you could see looking up at the sky is the bottom of the lid. Everything was small and closed off; sometimes beautiful, but always false. It seemed to me that a day time sky, even a lovely, sunny one, was just an illusion; so superficial... But on a clear night the lid is removed and it is like I could finally breathe... at night you see _the truth_... You're just a little flicker of life clinging to the surface of this speck of dust hurtling through this unfathomably massive universe... I suppose that should have made me feel lonely or scared but it was... _thrilling_... to think of it all and put things in perspective… and it - it always felt better because at least it was _truthful_.”

Sherlock gazes at his friend bathed in the soft moonlight as he studies the stars. His words seem so beautifully profound that the detective sinks back against the railing to steady himself. Once more, like a million quiet moments before, he marvels at the anomaly that is _John Watson_.

As if he’s forgotten the cold, John's arms have ceased clutching himself and now hang loose at his side. Sherlock looks at his bare arms and he abruptly realizes he wants to touch John. He wants to reach out and anchor him to this moment and let him know that he is no longer alone in the universe; there is someone beside him in the dark and he will never leave him again. 

His eyes drift down to John's hand and he contemplates taking it in his own and perhaps giving it a reassuring squeeze, like people sometimes do when they are trying to communicate with touch that everything is going to be alright. 

As his eyes drift to John's chest that is rising and falling beneath the thin fabric of his t-shirt, he realizes that an arm or hand isn't enough, what he truly wants is to wrap his arms around John and press John to his own chest. He has a fleeting thought that maybe if he lets John hear his heart beating, everything would be understood. 

Sherlock deliberates if a hug is permissible in the unspoken social contract of acceptable behavior that John seemingly has clearly outlined in his head but the detective is always fumbling to define through observation. There _was_ the side hug John had given him during his Best Man speech which would seem to indicate hugs are permissible after important words. He takes a step forward.

“Orion,” John exclaims and Sherlock freezes. The doctor lowers his head back down to look at his companion. He is smiling faintly and his eyes dance with an inner light of joy, but when he takes in Sherlock, his head tilts a fraction to the side and his eyebrows draw up marginally at their inner corners as if he is trying to assess what Sherlock is doing. The detective loses his nerve and spins to stand beside John. He tilts his head back to direct his gaze at the sky and makes a sound of consideration. 

John smiles and returns his eyes to the sky, eagerly gesturing at a smattering of stars. “Right there,” John breathes tracing lines in the air. “Those three are his belt,” John says sweeping a finger across a sagging line of three bright stars. “And there's his shield...”

“A soldier, then,” Sherlock states. It does not surprise him that John's favorite constellation, even in childhood, would be a soldier.

“A hunter, actually,” John corrects. His smile turns impish. “ _World's greatest_ hunter, according to the myth.” He looks at the _world’s only_ consulting detective out of the corner of his eyes. 

“Rumored to tower over others, as the tallest and most handsome of men.” John continues to smile, his eyes shifting to Sherlock.

“Oh?” Sherlock breathes uncertainly. He swallows. John has never really indicated he is attractive in his eyes. He’d once made a passing remark about his cheekbones, but Sherlock could never determine if cheekbones being _‘mysterious’_ was code for _desireable_ or for _freakish_ and _intimidating._ Past experience pushed the conclusion to the latter category. Many considered Sherlock a freak, and his looks fit neatly into the definition of rare, if not unnatural. The two men’s eyes lock; cobalt blue meeting smoke grey. Both appear guarded yet searching, thoughtfully weighing each other. John clears his throat.

“Though, turns out he was a bit of a prick,” John says breaking the stare and looking up. He rocks heel to toe again and Sherlock pretends not to notice how he is flexing his hand open and closed at his side; a clear indication he is working himself up to confronting something emotionally challenging.

Sherlock lets his eyes run over his friend and reconsiders the way he looks at the sky. He thinks it perhaps has too sharp an edge of longing to be categorized as he previously thought. He considers that it instead may be the look one would give a long-lost lover. This makes a warmth creep through his insides. Even through the thick fabric of his Belstaff he is keenly aware of the proximity of John's shoulder to his own and the way their bodies are swaying naturally towards each other.

“So, what lead to his demise,” Sherlock inquires; his voice the practised casual interest that has served him so well over the years. 

John shrugs. “There are lots of different stories,” His eyes narrow and his lips thrust forward. “ _Love_ or _pride_ , mostly.” He chews his lip a moment appearing to carefully consider his next words. “In the _pride_ version, he gets too cocky, brags about his ability to hunt anything and gets taken down by a giant scorpion.” 

Sherlock shudders. The story seems an uncomfortably close parallel to Moriarty’s little _‘Sir Boast-A-Lot’_ tale. Even knowing Moriarty is unquestionably dead does not lessen the sensations of fear and terror that sometimes creeps over him at his mere memory.

“And _Love_?” Sherlock presses, hoping to quickly move away from his current stream of thoughts. 

“He chased Pleione for seven years before Zeus stepped in, took mercy, and cast them up into the stars.”

Sherlock freezes and blinks repeatedly. It is six years, two months and eight days since John walked into the lab at Bart's. A coincidence, perhaps, but he has been schooled that when it comes to coincidences... the universe is rarely so lazy. 

He hadn't really been _hunting_ John that long, but then again maybe he had. It had been less of a clear pursuit than a complicated dance that he barely realized he was swept up in until it was too late. Then he realized he never knew the proper steps and so it always seemed to be a fumbling and hapless disaster of a samba. 

Sherlock feels as if a series of micro-explosions have been detonated throughout his chest and face. The balcony drops out from under him momentarily and he inadvertently bumps into John's shoulder in an effort to keep himself steady. John gives no outward appearance that he notices this, continuing to gaze at the sky, but as the detective straightens the doctor's shoulder pushes up against the taller man’s and stays firmly pressed there as if steadying him. 

“Seven years is a long time,” Sherlock mutters absently. 

John looks at his feet again, wiggling his toes. He heaves a heavy sigh “Can hardly call it a passing fancy after that long,” he seems to be talking to himself more than Sherlock. The silence stretches between them. John diverts his eyes from the sky to look over his hands that are held in front of him, fingers splayed, turning them over slowly. 

“Here's the thing Sherlock... I'm getting too old for this,” he says 

A jolt of fear shoots through the detective. He knew this day would come but he always thought he had a few more years. The ex-soldier complains of aches and pains sometimes but he still throws a good punch, he tackles someone easily, he still keeps up on foot chases, and still shoots straight. Even if he was suddenly unable to do any of those things he is still invaluable to Sherlock as his _conductor of light._ His insights often are key in speeding up resolution of the case. Frankly, if his companion could do nothing but stand there with those warm, blue eyes on Sherlock and utter the occasional word of praise it would be enough for the consulting detective. 

Sherlock takes a deep breath, prepared to launch into a persuasive and unassailable argument, “Nonsense, John, you're assistance with the work is vital-”

“I mean the pretending, Sherlock,” John interjects, his tone harsh with frustration. “I can't keep pretending that I'm something I'm just not.” He closes his eyes, tucks his chin into his chest and tips his head in his stubborn way. 

Sherlock's brow wrinkles in confused frustration. He opens his mouth but can only shake his head. His insides are twisting up in fear. 

_Pretending? Pretending to be assistant to a consulting detective? Pretending to be Sherlock’s friend? Pretending that this life as companion to a consulting detective is enough?_

“John?” It is all he can manage to say, the simple name that he utters when he is confused, lost, frustrated; that he calls out through the dark when scared, in pain or in need. The name that never fails him. And now it has a trembling hitch to it, like a plea for mercy. 

There are few people in the world truly capable of breaking him down to his core, but John can do it. Just like this. He need only take himself away. 

His hand clutches around John's forearm. “John,” he growls and surprises himself with how possessive and insistent it now sounds. 

John looks up at him, his eyes wide with surprise. Staring into his familiar blue wells Sherlock realizes time has run out. He has lived without John before, but it wasn't _living,_ not really. If anything it was a too slow march towards death that he would much rather lunge at headlong. 

_This is it. This is all I'll ever get. Then it is wise to take everything permissible. There is no use worrying about breaking what is already broken._

Before his mind has time to resist or reevaluate, his mouth is pressing against John's. Sensation bursts across his awareness; the chill of lips cooled by the early autumn air, firm, strong and dry contrasting with the warm and wet gust of breath from John's startled gasp. 

Sherlock thrusts his tongue into the opening created by that shocked exhale. He hungrily sweeps his flesh over John's intimate flesh; urgently tasting, aware that at any moment John is going to push him away in anger or perhaps disgust. But he will have at least this one thing, this one piece of John he can lock away in his Mind Palace and call back to him as he will be unable to do with the man himself. 

Sherlock's brain parses the flavor of John like a wine connoisseur; the sharp edge of spearmint toothpaste, the warm herbal earthy tones of Earl Grey tea, the slightly creamy and mulled flavor of the milk he'd added and _something_ … something _uniquely John._

Sherlock plunges deeper, tongue twisting and exploring as he tries to discern the richness and complexity of John. His hands are clasping the ex-soldier’s face, holding him firmly in place and he is pushing the shorter man back until he hears him thump against the glass of the patio door. Then he uses his body to pin him. 

Adjectives float through his mind that are infuriatingly non-quantifiable; generous yet opulent, bright yet dense, delicate yet resilient. All so abstract, nebulous and intangible. He has a sensitive palate, he _should be able to_ find some flavor or combination of flavors that he can equate to this, but it remains ethereal. How can he ever hope to recapture John in the lonely days to come if the man is so resistant to definition? 

He growls in frustration and John answers with a sound of his own that causes Sherlock to bite down on his friend’s lower lip while something needy shivers through his whole system.

Somehow the tilt of his companion’s head changes allowing their lips to slot together _just so_ and Sherlock finds he can deepen the kiss; he desperately works to pull John’s very essence out through his mouth. Electricity flickers through him as John’s tongue begins to fight back, pressing and flicking against his own.

He has yet to determine a suitable analysis of John's taste however he can’t, in good conscious, continue this assault. Resigning himself to not being able to hold onto his friend in even this, he at last breaks away, releasing his grasp on his head. He remains pressed against John because he feels the weakness in that usually sturdy frame as it slouches. John’s head falls back against the glass door with a thunk. His chin tips up and he gazes at the sky. 

“Christ, Sherlock,” John whispers into the night in a husky voice, and Sherlock cringes, the waves of guilt crashing over him for having thoroughly tainted any of John’s last memories of him. “I wasn't - that was....”

Sherlock leans forward and breathes John in a moment. He wants to push away, before he is pushed. He wants to be the type of man that was deserving of John’s companionship. He'd done it before, sacrificed everything for John Watson, surely he could do it again. But this is different; it is burning through him, demolishing him, emptying him out in ways he hadn’t thought possible. 

“Please, John,” he hears spilling from his treacherous lips. They find that strong neck, pressing and licking and sucking, trying desperately to memorize taste, scent, texture, the heat, the flex and slide of muscle, the thump of pulse beneath flesh, how it yields and how it resists. A million points of data and properties unexplored that he desperately needs to catalog now before he's gone forever.

“Please,” he growls, dipping his mouth to John’s collar bone and taking the flesh between his teeth, feeling it roll as he increases the pressure, nipping down on it and tasting the sharp, metallic of John's blood. 

John’s hips pitch forward against Sherlock’s own firmly planted body, and somewhere distant a cry is swallowed up by the dark night. It is drown out by the rush of his own heart thumping in his ears.

His mouth continues its relentless pursuit even as his nimble fingers are moving lightning quick, stealing under the hem of the ex-soldier's soft cotton shirt to the hard muscles underneath, sweeping against the hollow of the navel, soft with a downy fur of brown hair, up to the ribs, drinking in the angles and curves of the unique architecture. 

Suddenly they are falling backwards through the open door of the balcony, the warm rush of air from the hotel room stinging against Sherlock’s already hot flesh.


	2. A Little Death

He knows John is talking. He is vaguely aware of strong hands insistently pushing at him, but he can't hear and he can hardly see in the white, hot frenzy; the raging need for everything from John. 

Their arms are tangling as Sherlock continues his desperately urgent exploration with his hands and angrily finds his own clothes hindering him as they inexplicably fall away. 

“Please, John. Let me have you,” he insists in frustration as his housecoat catches at his elbows, his Belstaff somehow already pooled at his feet. He whips the clothing off in frustration, delving his hands back under John's hem to wrap around and trace the dip of his spine.

 _‘Just once’_ he convinces himself. _‘Just everything. Just now. Just once. Then he can go.’_

He is vaguely aware of hot, wet breath against his shoulder and words being uttered into the prickling flesh there. It could be a curse, or praise or an extremely valid argument on the merits of preserving their friendship even in parting ways, but Sherlock can't be bothered to quiet his long-denied body and listen. He wants, _needs,_ everything. John, both stronger and more skilled at hand-to-hand combat than he is, could physically stop him but until he does he is going to take all of him, without restraint or mercy.

His tongue traces the shell of John’s ear, mapping the thin ridges and sweeping planes of cartilage that curl in a unique sculptural pattern. It flicks over the more supple swells of flesh skirting the ear’s outer rim and he pulls the lobe into his mouth with his tongue. He feels John's whole body shudder against him. He pulls him tighter, his large hand flattening against the small of his tightly coiled back. He brings their bodies flush, keeping him firmly locked in place as he tests the properties of that bit of flesh between his lips and with a swirl of his tongue, then a gentle crush of teeth.

He dips his mouth to below the ex-soldier’s ear and tastes the line where hard jaw meets soft and vulnerable flesh of neck, delighting in the two-day-old stubble, rough and bristly. The pulse there jumps rapidly, throbbing wildly under the skin as he nudges John’s head aside and sucks a large patch of flesh into his mouth, laving his flattened tongue against that almost painfully abrasive texture again and again. 

He tastes delicious, maddeningly so; addictive. Everything he’d fabricated in his mind from fragments of data is a pale shadow of the reality of the thrill of his musky sweat on the tongue. He runs his tongue across that patch of stubble until his own sensitive tastebuds are almost raw and he knows he's left broken capillaries under John’s skin.

_Let it burn and bleed and mark. If this is to be all there is, then sear this moment on the flesh like an eternal branding, consuming all that was and marring all that ever could be._

He presses forward and his feet tangle in fabric. He glances down and realizes it is John's pajamas bottoms on the floor at their feet. He barely spares a thought to how his mind has finally gained the power to will its desires into fruition as he folds his body to taste John's shoulder while his hands stroke the newly exposed flesh of strong thighs. 

He curls his fingers around the back of John's legs, into the seam where the swell of flesh of his arse is bound beneath the fabric of his cotton pants; tracing the silky valley, wrapping around until the knuckles of his two hands bump against each other at the back; wedged into the crack with the tips of long fingers brushing against the back of John's clothed balls. 

John's pelvis leaps forward in a jerky, involuntary movement and Sherlock grips the legs tighter, nipping down on his trapezius muscle.

“Let me,” he urges harshly; more demand than question. He turns his head so lips ghost against the column of that stout neck. He feels the rumble of a sound in John's throat and the brush of chin against his cheek as the head bobs slightly up and down. 

Sherlock growls possessively, the modicum of permission like another dam breaking inside him; any last tethers of restraint now severed, and giving way to animalistic need. He pushes John’s chin up as his lips press harder against the skin over his throat, stretching it taut so he can better feel the muscle and ridges of the trachea underneath, letting his teeth scrape against the flesh on either side of his airway, the thrill in that inherent danger, holding _his soldier's_ life in his hand, quivering like a struck cord in his body.

There is a moment of weightlessness and Sherlock realizes belatedly as he crashes down onto John that they've tumbled onto John's sleep tousled bed. He is blinded for a moment, cotton tangling around his arms and face and when he finally thrashes his way free, tossing his shirt aside impatiently, he finds John without a shirt as well. 

The tantalizing compact and muscular chest of the ex-soldier is heaving rapidly, muscles and scars shifting as his body rises and falls. His face is flushed, his blond lashes dance over his tan cheeks turned a glorious shade of pink. His lips are parted, panting, and his half lidded eyes shine bright and wild; awe and fear and desire all warring for supremacy. 

Sherlock straddles his hips, trying to lock away all the details as he studies the body below him.

“Sherlock,” John says in a strained voice, hands reaching towards the thin hips pressing him down into the mattress. 

Sherlock lunges forward, snatching up his thicker wrists in his long fingers and pinning them over his head, thrusting a tongue into his open mouth to stifle his words. He doesn't want to hear objections or doubt or reason.

He’d died for John; once stepping off a building, once on an operating table, and a thousand little ways as he was beaten and broken those lonely years away. He’d fought his way back each time and even allowed the man to inflict on him the slow emotional death, like a dull and rusty knife twisting in a painfully infected wound, that was asking him to participate in wedding him to another. 

He had given everything over to John. Furiously he thinks that if John is walking away now, leaving him to his inevitable descent into self-inflicted hell, his companion at least owes him a death. 

The _‘little death’_ is what they used to call it in less enlightened times; believing each time a man orgasmed he _died a little_. 

Suddenly it's not just about cataloging John, taking in all he can. He wants John to _feel._ He needs John to know the passion and the torment of all his losses compressed into a single instant of unbearably bitter-sweet ecstasy. 

_Only death could be a suitable end to the coexistence of the consulting detective and the former soldier._

“No words,” he growls against John's lips as he grips his wrists tighter and pushes them into the mattress to assert himself. 

John makes a low groan and his eyes press closed as he shakes his head up and down, his strong body going limp; surrendering into pliancy beneath Sherlock. 

Sherlock hums his approval and sets his considerable brain on the task of breaking John, bit by bit.


	3. Breaking John Watson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock plans to break John Watson by the book. Nothing ever goes quite as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a definite NSFW - _probably make you blush if you do that sort of thing_ \- chapter.  
>  Be forewarned - it gets steamy.

Sherlock lets his fingers drift from John’s wrists down his forearms and feels the body shiver beneath him. He smiles with wicked satisfaction at the need already brimming there; all of John’s skin turned erogenous with desire - sensitized and extremely responsive to his every touch.

Any great interrogator will tell you there are three tried and true steps to breaking a man: _one,_ overwhelm him and create a sense of helplessness; _two_ , provide intense and/or prolonged periods of stress; _three,_ confront him with his own vulnerability. Sherlock plans to break John Watson by the book.

A dark, avaricious sound rumbles in his chest as he drags his open and wet lips down to suck at the flesh of that vulnerable throat. He runs his fingers lightly down both of John’s sides adding a soft and gentle contrast to the sharp and aggressive sensation of his mouth. The body underneath him quivers and squirms as breath punches out of it in little, barely restrained huffs and grunts. 

He ignores the gnawing ache in his own chest as he moves to suck bruising marks up the side of John's neck from his shoulder to his jaw. He knows it is a bitter-sweet indulgence to carve out of his soldier's flesh this small and fleeting claim. It is an act of futility. While it may serve as a temporary reminder for John of this moment of intimacy, the marks will fade from his skin in the days and weeks to come like all the memories of Sherlock surely will. Nothing of this will endure.

He is suddenly grateful for his own directive of _‘no words’_ There is no telling what absurd and unreasonable demands he would make if he could.

_’Please, John, let me keep you.’_

He runs his lips and tongue gently, soothingly, over the reddened marks as his hands continue stroking reverently. Gentle, feather-light caresses dip over the hills and valleys created by the skin pulling tant over the bones of his rib cage with each heaving breath he takes. 

Sherlock kisses lower. His long, thin hands settling on the top of John's muscular hips and pushing down firmly as he closes his lips around the darkened flesh of his right arreola and flattens his tongue over the already raised nipple. He circles it with light pressure, then flicks at it with the tip of his tongue.

“Christ!” John exclaims, his whole body lifting off the mattress in an arching, convulsive jerk. Sherlock doesn't remove his mouth but glares up John's body into his eyes. A low rumble in his throat affirms his displeasure at John's verbal outburst. His fingers tighten around the soldier’s hips with bruising force while he takes the little nib of flesh between his teeth, exerting the slightest pressure. 

John swallows, presses his lips together and nods minutely. Sherlock keeps him pinched between his teeth, eyes locked on those dark blue eyes, pupils blown wide, as he flicks the sensitive peak with his tongue again. John hisses and makes a smaller arch; his strong body clenching and flexing upward, but he doesn't say a word. Sherlock releases the flesh and runs his tongue over it gently, humming his approval at John’s compliance. 

_One: overwhelm him with a sense of helplessness_

Sherlock smiles as he moves to the other nipple and lavishes the same treatment on it, admiring the way all of John's muscles twitch into defined lines with his involuntary contortions. He really is the perfect specimen of a man.

John's hands, still above his head where Sherlock placed them, are clenched into fists now; nails biting into his palms with the struggle for restraint. The thick muscles on the underside of his arms stand out, straining beneath the skin, and Sherlock wants to start all over again; working his way down his body by running his tongue over the muscles of those arms. But there is no telling how long John's tolerance and patience for indulging him will last and he wants _(needs)_ to drive him over the edge and see him utterly shattered in that most intimate of acts before the inevitable moment of reckoning arrives. 

He settles for running his fingers over those powerful arms as his mouth works over his solid chest, kissing reverently at the gnarled scar on his left shoulder that made him broken enough to ever need Sherlock. 

Through touch he measures the strength of those limbs; memorizes their flex. His mind offers flickers of images of them wrapped around his body; holding him in a comforting embrace that is protective and full of affection, bracing him with their quiet strength as they gently lower him to the bed, enclosing him powerfully and unyielding like steel as the ex-soldier takes him with devastating force from behind.

Sherlock groans, his fingers digging into John’s arms as he thrusts forward and drags his groin over John in a slow, deep roll. The friction of John’s firm thigh and hip against his own painfully needy arousal sets off firecrackers of sensation throughout his body. He stays there for a moment, held in a strained arc and vibrating in the throes of his own neglected need. 

John’s soft groan and answering roll of hips at last brings him back from the screaming desire of his own transport. He lowers himself down gently, releasing those arms which will surely bare bruises in the shape and spread of his finger tips. 

As he resumes his slow decent of kisses he muses that, as crime scenes go, in the case of _the little death of John Watson_ he is doing a fine job of leaving enough evidence that even Scotland Yard could get somewhere with it.

He presses kisses down John’s body following the trail of light brown hair as he moves downward. When he reaches the dip at John's navel he eagerly plunges his tongue into the valley and twirls it in a filthy, suggestive manner. He looks up at John meeting his gaze with a heated stare full of intent. John groans as his head falls back against the pillow with a thump. His hips roll a little and he breathes out hard through his nose, his arm muscles flexing. Sherlock licks into the hollow where the skin is soft and smooth. He delights in John’s little shivers and whines as he places kisses on either side of the orifice before moving lower.

John’s whole body tenses as Sherlock hovers mere millimeters from the pulsing form of his cock, his hot breath bleeding through the fabric as he moves, tracing its outline through his pants. He can tell without even touching that John is fully erect; the long and broad shape nearly pushing up through the waistband of his navy blue briefs. Sherlock sits up, straddling John's knees and kneading at his thighs with his hands a moment; just devouring him with his eyes. 

He has arrived. Here is the moment of no return; perched on the edge staring down at John who is gazing up with such vulnerability and need. Moving forward brakes everything but there is no turning back. 

There is none of the fear and doubt of the previous mirror of this moment; he is not leaving John, John is leaving him. There is no illusion of choice here nor some nagging apprehension that if he was smarter he would be able to solve this without breaking everything that matters most. There are no winning scenarios. And, as always, it’s not the _fall_ that he need concern himself with, it is the _landing_... and that result will not change; Sherlock broken and bloody on the pavement, the heart burned out of him. 

But this time John won't be there reaching for him, waiting for him, believing in him… this time John will just turn and walk away.

_’Please John, don't leave me broken._

John is looking up at him and Sherlock can see the soft concern and pity in his eyes and the words forming on his lips. He plunges forward, capturing John's mouth in a rapacious kiss. Hot and forceful; he doesn't stop kissing him until John is gasping and he's sure he has licked away those words, drowning them in a sea of arousal. 

He wiggles his body from straddling John to prying his legs apart and sinking between his thighs. He runs his nose along his clothed erection and hears John moan. He inhales deeply, taking in all of John's scent; so much more potent than the faint whiff he has been allowed when they have been forced into close proximity due to cases. He knows, like his taste, there is no hope of defining or recreating this intoxicating scent that is uniquely John.

He moves lower, pushing John's thighs further apart as he mouths at his balls, rolling them gently and letting the vibration of his own groan rumble through them as he holds his open mouth around this most vulnerable flesh, mesmerized by their fullness and the gentle roll of them. John arches and hums appreciatively.

Sherlock licks along the seam of his pants, tracing with his eager tongue the groove where fabric meets flesh as it wraps around his leg. He lets his tongue dart below the fabric, flicking at the sensitive skin of the perineum and across his testicles, pulling a little into his mouth and sucking gently, relishing the taste and the delicacy of the skin. John bites down on the beginning of a curse and instead resorts to a low snarl. 

He moves up, his hands taking over the gentle caressing and tugging on John’s balls as he presses gentle kisses through the fabric along the length of the hard flesh. He feels John watching him with breath held as he mouths at him through the fabric. He works his way from base to tip, pressing a kiss at the very top, pinned beneath the waistband, and getting his first taste of John by lapping at the wet patch that has formed there. 

“Sheee-Ga-plee,” John grunts incoherently through gritted teeth, throwing his head back and lifting his pelvis trying to press into that mouth that is so warm and wet and so teasingly close. Sherlock abandons his caressing to press those hips down and just hover there, eyes staring up at John with a dark, challenging glare. 

John's golden lashes flutter as he presses his eyes closed hard and whimpers before relaxing just a little, a true act of willpower from the way he is quivering now and has tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling as if he can't bare to watch. The air is leaving his body in little puffs that have a definite pained edge to them. 

Sherlock resumes his worship of John's privates with his mouth, alternating bouts of the flirting mouthing of his cotton-sheathed cock with attention to his balls and perineum. He cinches his need tighter and tighter with a tortuously slow and teasing dance up to the line of _almost enough,_ then suddenly backing off whenever John gets too close by abruptly diverting his attention elsewhere. 

When John seems unable to withstand any further attention to his aching erection, he applies sucking and nipping kisses to his thighs and kneads his arse with hands that dip and probe teasingly along his crack to keep him off balance and on edge. 

Soon John's whole body in pulled taut and he is vibrating like a plucked violin string. His thighs are quivering, his whole body is hot, covered in a sheen of sweat, and his pulse is that of a cornered hare. The sounds he makes are wildly erotic and animalistic and Sherlock is having to use quite a bit more force to keep his hips still. He knows John is right there on the edge of the breaking point now.

_Two: provide him an intense and prolonged period of stress._

Sherlock growls hungrily as he pulls back John's pants and his flushed cock at last springs free, bobbing a moment before resting heavily against his stomach in the the nest of curly gold and silver hair. It, like everything to do with John, is the absolute epitome of masculinity; strong and powerful. Sherlock caresses it, and it feels like the softest silk stretched over steel. It twitches in his grasp and weeps as John sucks in a sharp breath at the touch of flesh on flesh. He pushes up desperately seeking more friction.

Sherlock had planned to tease him more, break him further, but his own need is aching at the perfect symphony of sensations. He rushes forward and sweeps his tongue around the tip once before pushing it as far into his mouth as he can, which is only a little over half way down John’s length before he chokes, his throat convulsing. He backs off slowly, pressing his tongue hard against the underneath and hollowing his cheeks, enjoying the weight and girth and heat of John inside him. His mind reels with the ecstasy of it and his own body feels like it is vibrating, shaking apart at the overwhelming sensations tangled with messy and heady emotions.

He continues, almost urgently, sucking and swirling and trying to take John further inside himself, always stopped by a gag and his throat closing off against the swollen mass of flesh. 

He becomes aware of John muttering gutturally in what at first sounds like random strings of vowels and consonants until he realizes that it is in fact phrases in the Pashto language (mostly consisting of crudely translated curses) - something John must have picked up in Afghanistan. This startling revelation, that John can speak another language, is enough to snap Sherlock out of his own head and he lets John slide out of his mouth with a pop as he lifts up and quirks an eyebrow at him. 

John's eyes snap open and he gives a tight laugh followed by a warm, if strained, smile. 

“Mehrabani wokra,” he pants. “Zalima, dumra meena rasara ma kawa, lewanai ba me ke!”

 _‘Please.’_ Sherlock's mind translates. _‘Don't love me this much, lest I'll go crazy!’_

Sherlock can only blink at him. He feels the wet at the corners of his eyes and he is not altogether sure it is from the strain of trying to deepthroat John.

_Three: confront him with his own vulnerability._

And there it is. A man broken. Because if John Watson has one vulnerability, it is Sherlock Holmes and, in this moment, he is fully aware and completely resigned to that. 

But because Sherlock’s greatest vulnerability is also John Watson, he did not realize he could not break the man without exposing all his own vulnerability and breaking himself as well. He loves John and John knows it now, and somehow... that makes this so much worse.

John sees it. He sees the look of utter devastation that is in Sherlock’s eyes and his face falls from amusement to wounded compassion and he starts to reach up for him. Sherlock slams him down forcefully with a broad palm on his chest and plunges his mouth down on him, engulfing him fully, his throat burning and convulsing around the intrusion as John's tip slams against the back of his throat.

“Jesus-Mother-of-Christ-Have-Mercy,” John bellows, his whole body arching and quivering. Sherlock feels him grow inconceivably thicker against his tongue, he feels the tell-tale pulse along the underside. He makes small bobbing movements back and forth, his throat clenching around John once, twice, then John is spilling down his throat as he roars Sherlock’s name. 

Sherlock takes and takes, pulling back a little as John slows, to taste him on his tongue, not wanting to ever let go. His ears ring and his whole body buzzes. He realizes sickly that the warmth cooling against his abdomen is his own release; having come, untouched and still in his pajama bottoms and pants, just from the act of pleasing John.

He at last releases John's softening cock and raises up to look at him. He appears gloriously debauched; a thin sheen of sweat making him shimmer in the moonlight flowing in through the glass doors leading to the balcony. There is a flush spread across his marked chest and his eyes sparkle as he chuckles.

Sherlock's heart soars and then crashes into his stomach as reality comes back into focus. Even as the post-coital chemicals rush in his bloodstream he feels a darkness sweep over him. _This is it. It's over..._ And twisting that knife even more painfully is the horrifying truth that he didn't see _it._ He'd had his eyes closed and he missed the moment when John went over the edge. He had one chance to capture and ingrain on his memory the glorious sight of having taken John to the point of complete ecstasy and, in his desperation to keep the depths of his feelings hidden, he had managed to let it slip from his grasp. 

His hearing resolves; the high pitched whine fading. He realizes there is thumping and shouting from the walls and John is talking. 

“Shit-shit-shit-shit… sorry, yeah... sorry,” he laughs rubbing his hands over his face in embarrassment. “Got a bit carried away,” he snorts.

Sherlock takes one last look at the beautiful man laid bare before him then climbs over John's leg. Wobbling slightly on surprisingly weak and unsteady legs, he then slips silently into the bathroom.


	4. The Reckoning

Sherlock lets the water stream over his hands a moment before cupping them and splashing a palmful of the tepid liquid onto his face. All his flesh feels like it is burning and he is shaking from the inside out. He grabs a flannel and presses his face to it wishing, _irrationally,_ it was somehow just as easy to purge and cleanse away the emotions that cling to him. Then again, nothing about being in love with John or what he had just done was _rational_ , lack of logic seems to be his new modus operandi.

He glances down at his pale, shivering body and sighs. There is a soul-deep weariness creeping into him and he doesn't feel strong enough to continue breathing, much-less make himself somewhat presentable for the emotional beating he is about to endure. However, his options are currently quite limited. 

He runs his wet fingers through his black curls and musters his remaining strength to strip off his pajama bottoms and pants and carefully wipe the sticky coating from his stomach and groin with the dampened flannel. 

He leans against the sink, his palms curling around the basin, still feeling very unsteady and something less than human. He breathes deeply and considers that he should probably shower and wash the scent of John off of him. He is not sure he can face John telling him to sod off when he can still feel him in his pores, taste him on his tongue and all his nerves still buzz with the electricity of his warm flesh sliding against his own. He struggles to weigh his apparently meager reserve of expendable energy against the tasks required of him. 

_First: the mind, then the body. Get your thoughts under control._

He presses his eyes closed and tries to sort the sensory data into neat little boxes so he can lock them away and shove them into a dark corner.

He hears John stumble to the doorway; his energy bright and evanescent in the dim room, his breathing still elevated and verging on giddiness. 

Sherlock lets his breath out slowly and tries to straighten his spine and smooth his features. He doesn't have the energy or the illusion of pride enough to be embarrassed about his own nakedness and it almost seems right that this is how it is going to happen; standing fully exposed before John, stripped of all his usual armor and more vulnerable than he ever wanted to be with anyone. 

A soft hum rolls from John's chest into the quiet room and Sherlock can feel those dark blue eyes running over his body in the dim light. He allows his own eyes to slide open, staring down at his chest and watching out of the corner of his eye as John leans against the door frame. He hasn't bothered to recover his clothes, and Sherlock turns his head away to deny himself the indulgence of another look.

“Sorry… took me a moment to recover... I'm feeling a bit like putty all over,” John chuckles. Sherlock nods, forcing his eyes to study the porcelain sink; the smooth swirls in the glaze and the subtle chips along the edges. He wraps his fingers tighter around the edge until his knuckles ache from the strain. He feels like it is the only thing solid, the only thing keeping him standing upright. 

John goes still and watches Sherlock a moment. “You need a moment… or… It's alright to talk _now_ , right?” he says slowly with a hint of concern. 

_Talking._

Sherlock takes a deep breath and feels his insides twist up. The moment of reckoning has arrived. John is going to tell him he doesn't feel the same, he is still leaving and that it is best not to see each other again. It was inevitable this would come. Best to get it over with and try to maintain as much dignity as the current situation can afford.

“Of course, John,” Sherlock says quietly. His voice is scratchy from having John so deep inside him but he is grateful it is at least steady. He closes his eyes as the memory of John against his tongue makes him feel all his weaknesses. He pushes the sensory memory away. Since his _former_ companion isn't speaking he decides to get it over with and fall upon his sword.

“I appreciate you… _indulging_ me,” Sherlock says straightening. His tone is stiff and determined. “I apologize for… taking liberties-” He glances at John and visibly cringes as he drags his eyes over the deep purple marks running up the doctor's chest and neck, his eyes darting away before they can meet John's gaze. It feels stupid and childish now. John is _not_ his to claim. 

“Sorry, what?” John asks, his brow furrowing in confusion as he pushes off the doorway to stand, his body tensing slightly and his face darkening. 

Sherlock sighs heavily; the frustration directed at himself more than John who, of course, had been maintaining their usual comfortable companionship, emanating warmth and kindness even as he stood perched ready to cut his heart out. Well, better the anger than the pity. Sherlock never cared for lukewarm relationships. He'd made the exception for John who was nothing but contradictions. He sets his jaw and stiffens himself.

“I know that what occurred was not a _desired result_ -”

"Are you joking?” John interjects, now bristling. Sherlock gazes back with a cold, stony expression prepared for the wrath he has willfully courted. He bows his head and presses his eyes closed so at least he won't have to have the visual image of this moment on constant replay in his sometimes cruelly obsessive mind. His shoulders rise and fall heavily with the oppressive weight of breathing; the pain of existing in this moment. He wishes John would just get it over with. He wants nothing more than to collapse into a pile on the cold tile floor, but he can't with John standing there. 

He startles when he feels strong hands grip his upper arms and he jerks his head up to stare at the man before him. John's eyes are surprisingly hard; determination and passion making him appear unusually forceful and aggressive. There is _something else_ there too but Sherlock doesn't understand that. Though he is so openly expressive, some of John’s expressions still lack a proper definition due to insufficient data.

“That was fucking amazing “ John says in a voice so deep it is nearly a growl. “ _Literally_ … Fucking... _Amazing_... what you did - The way you love… Well, it's like everything you do, Sherlock; _fierce and brilliant_ and...” John’s hands tighten on Sherlock's shoulders a moment. “I would have told you as much at the time... had you _let me._ ” 

John is looking at him with something softer that the detective assumes is _pity._ This makes his natural defenses re-engage and his anger swells to venomous levels. The doctor is foolish if he thinks saying these things makes it easier on Sherlock. He shakes his head, his eyes narrowing and his fists clenching. 

“This is not kinder, John,” he snarls using his superior height to loom over the other man. “You, no doubt, believe yourself to be magnanimous to dither and couch the issue in thinly veiled compliments. I am not feeble-minded, easily plied and so declassé that those pedestrian tactics could be anything but _insulting._ My scientific intellect thrives on _facts._ I require the complete lack of ambiguity. If you have _ever_ had a care for me-” Sherlock’s voice cracks but he pushes on, clinging to his anger as a reservoir of strength. “You will make this quick and clear by providing me the unvarnished _truth_ ,” he demands.

John's jaw sets and an eyebrow arches. He speaks slowly as his eyes meet Sherlock’s with an equal heat.

“Obviously you didn't listen to a word I said before you shut me up and proceeded to quite thoroughly take me apart there, but you are sure as hell going to listen _now,_ William Sherlock Scott Holmes…” His voice has taken on that rarely deployed commanding tone of Captain Watson and he most certainly does have Sherlock’s full attention now. _John Watson_ is formidable in a fight but _Captain Watson_ is nearly an unstoppable force. Sherlock knows he has to rise to the challenge. 

“I told you the truth, you _idiot._ I said that _this_ \- this is all I ever wanted... _You and me_... No false facade of a sunny day to cover up _the truth_. Just the wide-open night... the wonderfully terrifying, quietly devastating reality of clinging to the edge of something amazing.”

Sherlock’s brow furrows. “Your analogies are trite and ambiguous.” He defiantly lifts his chin and shifts in the ex-soldier’s grip. “You talk nonsense… I don't understand you,” Sherlock growls.

John clears his throat and gazes at Sherlock a long moment. They glare at each other, neither willing to relent. John suddenly releases Sherlock’s arms and the thinner man nearly collapses as if it had been that touch alone shoring him up. John catches him as he crumples forward and his strong arms move to encircle him around the narrow waist.

His head comes to rest on John's strong shoulder and he wants to weep and rage and scream and taste John's warm skin all over again, but all he can do is sink into his former best friend with uselessly weak limbs and a mind torn between hungry love and devastating pain.

“God, John,” Sherlock mutters into his shoulder. “I love you so much that I _hate you_... and _myself_ … have mercy and just leave, as you wanted. Quickly, before I can manage more foolish, idiotic, pathetic acts.” He just rests his lips against John, breathing him in one last time, feeling their bodies pressed together so perfectly. 

John sighs heavily, the anger relaxing out of his body. His hands on Sherlock's back spread and he is so warm that Sherlock feels himself sinking, fading into the comforting strength and heat of the man that had come to be the center of his life. He knows he can't go back. The Work is cold and hollow, a pale shadow of the vibrant exsistence of living with John. Even loving him at arm's length had been so much more than he ever imagined possible, but now he had had one bitter-sweet taste of what he always wanted but had always been too afraid to ask for. There could be nothing beyond _that._

John's arms tighten for a moment and then he is shifting Sherlock up in his grasp.

“Here. Let's try this again.” He pulls Sherlock up so he can press his face into the taller man’s shoulder. He rests his lips against him, holding him there as he lets his warm, wet breath gust over the skin as it did before. 

“Pay attention this time,” John urges giving him a squeeze. Sherlock obliges, slowly turning his head, tipping it down and blinking him back into focus. He weakly moves to close his arms around his companion’s back.

“I was just like _this_ and I said… _I have wanted this for so long. I have loved you for_ ages _really… maybe since the first day I met you… yes,_ definitely _since that first moment when you took my phone... and it just keeps growing… I'm sorry... I was scared and confused... I convinced myself it could never happen… never work… things kept getting in the way... But I can't do it anymore. I can't wait any longer. I can't pretend that friendship is enough - that I'm not madly in love with you…_ ” John smiles against the skin of Sherlock’s shoulder and purses his lips in a gentle kiss. 

“About then you did the thing with your mouth by my ear and I made some noises that were... _rather embarrassing_ and I, quite possibly, lost all higher brain function.” John clutches him closer and crushes a kiss into his shoulder, harder and longer. Then he tips his head to the side to look up into his friend’s eyes.

Sherlock studies those deep blue eyes and suddenly he sees it; a look that was always there but he always failed to understand so had long ago disregarded as an anomaly of expression unique to John. No one else looked at him quite like _that._ It could be _anything,_ so therefore it was _nothing_. 

He always missed _something,_ and there it was, what he had always been missing about John; it was _love_. John _loves him_ \- had _always_ loved him. Complex and messy but raw, real, deep, powerful and enduring... distilled in that one expression. It was overwhelming. Everything he felt reflected there in equal intensity in John's expressive eyes. 

“Oh,” Sherlock breathes, his lips forming into the perfect circle around the word as his eyes brighten with revelation. He sinks against John, feeling a crushing weight lifting from him so suddenly that he is momentarily afraid the earth has lost all gravity.

“Oh,” he repeats because he can't think of anything even moderately intelligent to say in response to John Watson turning the world on its head again. He begins kissing at John's shoulder and neck; gentle, reverent kisses that are soft and sloppy with their drunken giddiness. 

John wraps thick fingers up his neck and into the curly hair at the base of his skull causing a wave of chills to cascade down his body. His lips are on his skin and the sensation is so intoxicatingly potent Sherlock begins digging his fingers into his strong back in order to hold on for dear life.

“You're bloody gorgeous,” John mutters into his hairline as he presses kisses all along his temple until his hot breath tickles Sherlock’s ear, making him stop completely and just revel in the sensation. “And you can have me any way you want me, truly, but next time I think it's my turn to take you apart and blow your mind like you just did for me.” John darts a warm, wet tongue into Sherlock's ear and his whole body shudders as he sinks further, nearly going boneless in John's arms. John chuckles.

“Alright. You've been awake for three days straight now. I think it's about time you take care of your transport,” he says firmly.

“I leave that to _you,_ John,” Sherlock says thickly, clinging to him.

“Some things never change,” John says with a soft laugh and a dramatic sigh. He sweeps Sherlock up into his arms and carries him to the bed, placing him gently down and pulling the duvet up over him. 

“You'll be here when I wake up,” Sherlock states like a command but his eyes are soft; uncertain and vulnerable.

“Always,” John says with a smile as he leans down and places a gentle kiss on each eyelid. “Get some sleep, love, you'll need it for the morning,” John gives him a precocious smile and wink and Sherlock memorizes that look in his eyes; desire and _love._

_Please, John, always look at me like that. Just that. Just now. Just always._

As Sherlock’s heavy eyelids slide close his last visual impression is John standing by the glass doorway to the balcony, the cool glow of the moonlight highlighting the lines of his strong body, his face tipped up towards the sky with that blissful look of someone that once was _lost_ and now is _found._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -FIN-
> 
>  
> 
> **If you enjoyed it please show the love. Kudos are great - comments even better!**

**Author's Note:**

>  **Your comments and your Kudos make it all worth it! I appreciate you taking a moment to show the love.  
> **  
>  (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ  
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